


Hibernation

by tokyolove



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: But kind of romantic, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, F/M, Fluff, Hawkeye is adorable, He's such a Mother Hen, I'd imagine Natasha is feeling pretty down after CA:TWS, It's implied I suppose, Lucky is a bottomless pit, NaNoWriMo, Not really romantic, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2613308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyolove/pseuds/tokyolove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone and all of their deepest, darkest, secrets were on the internet, but they would be okay. They always were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hibernation

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first one shot of a fair few that I'm writing for my NaNoWriMo 2014 attempt. This one sees Natasha and Clint reuniting after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell.
> 
> It was inspired by a Clintasha RP I had with a stranger on Omegle. Whoever you were, thank you.
> 
> I suppose it could also be an alternate version of my earlier one shot, Time For a Vacation.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or anything Marvel (other than my copious amounts of memorabilia and Funko Pop bobbleheads...).

The first text message came when Clint Barton had just stepped off of a commercial flight from Beijing. It had been hell in a flying tin can; he had been stuffed between a sweaty fat guy and a kid who had screamed the entire way back because, for some reason, his extraction had failed to turn up. He had waited twenty-four hours in a run-down apartment, with nothing to eat except really bad actual Chinese food from the restaurant below said run-down apartment, before deciding to book a flight to get himself home. He hated Beijing, and his Chinese was terrible (Natasha was the one who spoke the Chinese when they were there, all he could say was “please pass the soy sauce”), so he had just wanted to get back onto American soil as soon as his job was done. Besides, Lucky was waiting for him.

 

As he was dragging his bag through the baggage claim, thanking whatever god was above him (perhaps it was Odin?) for the fact that the S.H.I.E.L.D. issued military I.D. he had been given allowed him to take his bow on international flights – he would have been devastated if he had been forced to leave _Josie_ behind in Beijing -, his phone buzzed. It was tucked safely in the front pocket of his jeans, so he fished it out and pressed the button on top. The screen lit up and so did his face: it was a text from Natasha. He was half tempted to text her back demanding to know why she had taken so long to reply to his own text messages, which were mostly whining about Beijing and the fact that he couldn’t find a decent Kung Po Chicken anywhere despite being in China, but as he read her text with a furrowed brow, he decided against it. She wouldn’t appreciate his jokes anyway if she was worked up about something.

 

_Please be in New York._

 

Natasha never pleaded with him for anything, or with anyone for that matter. The tone of her text message was worrying and he replied while walking towards the exit just a little bit faster than he had been before.

 

_Luckily for you, I just landed. What’s up?_

 

There, that was a seriously appropriate tone, right? Clint was concerned, as this didn’t seem like the Natasha he knew. Something must have happened while he was away, something that he didn’t know about because she hadn’t been replying to any of his goddamn messages. At least she seemed to be replying now because it wasn’t long before his phone vibrated once again.

 

_S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gone. There’s nothing left._

 

Seeing Natasha’s message flash up on the small screen made Clint stop dead in his tracks. What did she mean by ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gone’? How could it be ‘gone’? He set his suitcase down so that he could reply with both hands. He could send a message back faster that way, instead of awkwardly fumbling with one hand and his left one at that. Natasha was left-handed and that fact always made him chuckle.

 

“You’re the other half of me,” he would tell her, “we’re like Yin and Yang. Left and right. It works on so many levels, Nat.”

 

She would always roll her eyes and tell him to stop being stupid but there was always that endearing smile on her face, the one that she saved just for him, and she usually only smiled it at him just before smacking him around the back of the head for another one of his smartass comments or stupid remarks. He would always just grin back with that shit-eating grin of his.

 

_Gone? How can it be gone? Is that why my extraction didn’t show up? I just figured they hated Beijing as much as me and didn’t want to come._

 

He hoped that last comment brought a smile out on Natasha’s face. He could just picture the troubled expression she was wearing right now, one that would lead to panic bubbling up inside of her and then exploding out in a torrent of emotion that she wasn’t used to showing, something he would usually have to talk her out of and sit with her until it was gone. Usually with pizza. He made a mental note to pick up pizza when he got closer to Bed Stuy.

 

_Hydra’s been growing inside it all this time. They took S.H.I.E.L.D. down. They had the Winter Soldier on their side._

 

Clint remembered the Winter Soldier. He was the man who had left Natasha bleeding out on the side of the road in Odessa five years ago. He had been on the rescue team who had been sent out to find her and he had thought she was talking complete shit out of deliriousness from lack of blood when she babbled on about the Winter Soldier – the man who she had told him had trained her as a child, the man who had been the only person she had truly loved during her life in Russia – that he hadn’t believed her. Only when witnesses confirmed the story of the man with the metal arm walking towards Natasha’s location shortly before she was shot, did he believe her.

 

The fact that the mysterious Soviet operative was back and now employed (either by choice or against his will, it didn’t matter) by Hydra was worrying. He was deadly and far more dangerous than any other operative anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever encountered before. Clint’s next text was one of nothing but concern for his partner.

 

_Are you okay?_

 

Her reply was speedy and he knew it was because she knew he was a worrier. She called him Мать ястреб – Mother Hawk. He took offence to being called a hen but a hawk he could deal with. And Clint wouldn’t lie, he actually found it rather endearing.

 

_Bullet, sewn up and not too problematic. Through and through, so it’s fine. Electric shock, going to be sore for a while. Usual bumps and bruises. I’ll live._

The message was so Natasha it was unbelievable. A simple list, short and clipped, with just enough information to satiate him without giving him more than was needed. She kept everything to himself and Clint didn’t expect anything less. But she just wished that for once she wouldn’t. He wished that sometimes she let Natasha Romanoff do the talking, rather than the Black Widow. But this was nothing more than a basic mission report so she kept things simple, to the point, and professional.

 

Damnit Natasha. Clint would have thrown the phone down, like he usually did when Natasha frustrated him via text message, but there wasn’t anything soft around him to throw it into, and a smashed up phone wasn’t something he particularly wanted to own.

 

_So no S.H.I.E.L.D. huh? What are you going to do? I know what I’m going to do, I’m going to gorge myself on pizza and take a vacation. You’re welcome to join me._

He began moving once again, picking up the handle of his case and rolling it towards the exit. He would pick up a cab from the waiting line of yellow cars outside, someone was bound to take his cash and drop him off near his apartment. It wasn’t his favourite way of travelling: cab drivers talked too much and he never wanted to make idle chitchat. They never seemed to get the message either when he buried his nose in his phone and continued talking to him anyway. It was at least forty minutes to Bed Stuy in traffic at this time of day and that was forty minutes of making conversation that Clint didn’t want any part in. Hopefully he might just miss the evening rush hour, cutting the time down to half an hour instead, though knowing his luck he would get stuck in the tail end of it and be stuck in the car even longer. Natasha would roll her eyes at him and call him a five year old, but he knew she hadte

 

_I don’t know anything anymore. All of my covers are gone. I have to find a new one._

 

Clint wished Natasha would just trust herself and leave the covers behind. He knew how impossible that would be for her, seeing as she had spent her entire life behind a mask, without knowing who she really was. He bet a psychologist would have a field day if he introduced them to her, but he knew Natasha would kill him for even joking about that. It was a very sensitive subject and for good reason.

 

Opening the back passenger door of a cab, Clint slipped inside.

 

“Bed Stuy please.”

 

The cab driver nodded and the car pulled away. Clint left his bag on the backseat beside him, not bothering with putting it in the trunk. It was small and easily fit on the seat. He had his phone back in his hand and his conversation with his redheaded partner continued.

 

_You’ll probably shoot me for even suggesting this but why not try living without a cover for once?_

_But I don’t know who I am without one._

_Exactly. Take some time, figure it out._

_Can I come and stay with you while I do that?_

_Of course. If you don’t mind pizza and hibernation._

_I don’t mind. I expected it from you anyway. I just got to yours, you actually cleaned up? I’m amazed._

_Oh ha ha. Yes I cleaned up. Note the lack of takeout cartons and arrowheads on the floor. And I hope you used your key and didn’t just break the lock again._

_I used my key. And I was impressed, until I found your dirty socks on the floor in the bedroom. The hamper’s right there, why are they on the floor?_

_Because I suck. I bought some of the tea you like by the way. It’s in the cupboard above the kettle. Make yourself comfortable._

_Already have. Thanks for the sweater._

_No problem. I’m almost home, see you in a bit._

Looking out of the window, Clint saw how close they were now to Bed Stuy and he was glad for the cab driver’s silence. He got the driver to pull over when he noticed the pizza place just two blocks from his apartment building and he paid the man with a rather generous tip – silence was something that should be rewarded sometimes.

 

He was at his apartment door just fifteen minutes later, three boxes of pizza in his arms and his case by his feet. How he had juggled the boxes and a suitcase up five flights of stairs he had no idea, but here he was. Getting his key out of his pocket was a whole other story, the pizza very nearly taking a nosedive to the dirty floor, but he saved it just in time. Clint was about to put the key in the lock when the door swung open, Natasha on the other side.

 

“Lucky heard you coming and let me know. Kate dropped him by about ten minutes ago.”

 

The dog was sniffing around, able to smell the pizza, and Clint grinned. He had missed his pizza dog. And his Russian spider. Not necessarily in that order, mind you (she would kill him if she thought she came second to his dog).

 

Stepping inside and stepping around the now excited Golden Labrador, Clint set the pizza down on the counter and dropped his case at his feet. His apartment was rather small, but it was in a New York brownstone so was hardly going to be a palace. Falling apart, with peeling purple paint and pictures hung up to cover cracks in the walls, his kitchen and living room were one shared space. A lot of the kitchen units were new but the couch just in front of them was a ratty old thing that Natasha claimed she hated but slept on far too often for her opinion to be valid. He didn’t want to tell her that he had found it in a thrift store.  He knew that she wasn’t against goodwill and charity, just that she didn’t like not knowing who had done what on the plush cushions, no matter how much he stressed to her that he had thoroughly cleaned the couch from top to bottom after he had lugged it all the way up the apartment stairs with Kate’s help when he had moved in. The elevator had been broken and it had been a major inconvenience.

 

He knelt down and gave Lucky’s head a rub, tickling him behind his ears just the way he liked, cooing over him slightly while Natasha looked on, a slightly bemused smile on her face. He knew she didn’t quite understand the relationship he had with his dog, but he knew about the secret cat she was harbouring back at her place. The cat that was hers but not hers. Liho she was called, if he remembered correctly, though Natasha denied ever naming the little kitten. Clint had seen her appear at Natasha’s window every so often, it was a cute little thing, and clearly had an attachment to his usually unattached to anyone or anything partner.  

 

Straightening back up, he gave one more ruffle to Lucky’s fur on the top of his head, before turning his attention to the redheaded Russian stood to his side. His grey-blue eyes looked up and down the full length of her body slowly, taking in all of the damage that he could see. Natasha had changed herself into some of his clothes, his favourite purple and black striped sweater hung from her small frame, a pair of sweatpants that she had pulled the drawstring as tight as it would go but they still hung from her hips and were baggy around her thighs. He chuckled a little at how _small_ the Black Widow looked when swamped in clothing that was at least a good three sizes too big for her.

 

“Why are you laughing at me?” Natasha’s tone was almost a little whiny, her lips pursed into a pout. It only made Clint chuckle again.

 

“No reason. Pizza?”

 

He hoped that by changing the subject and opening the pizza boxes (which he did, exposing a large pepperoni, a large margarita, and a large meat feast pizza – Lucky going mad and jumping around when he smelled the mass of cheese and meat) that Natasha wouldn’t punch him for laughing at her and then brushing off her question. He was glad that it worked, Natasha reaching forward and snatching a piece of margarita. Her glare wasn’t as deadly as it usually was but Clint was glad that she attempted it. It let him know that she was somewhat doing okay.

 

Grabbing a couple of plates from the cupboard, he set them down on the coffee table, motioning for Natasha to sit down before he moved the pizzas over there too. Lucky followed and sat beside the couch that Natasha sat herself on, waiting patiently, his tail swishing back and forth behind him. Natasha smiled and reached out, giving him a gentle pet while she finished her slice. A beer was placed in front of her, the top off, and another set down beside it before Clint catapulted himself onto the cushions next to her. She rolled her eyes before taking another slice of pizza, ignoring the plates he had put down. Clint looked pointedly towards them and Natasha simply shrugged.

 

“You left crumbs in my bed last time, I’m getting them on your couch.”

 

He sighed but he didn’t mind, not really. Lucky would probably just lick them up anyway.

 

The three of them ate in silence for a little while (Lucky was the only one who used a plate in the end, Clint setting one down on the floor for him only because tomato sauce was a bitch to get out of the carpet and there were enough stains on there already from mystery foods that he would rather not think about) just munching their way through the three large pizzas that would probably have fed a group of seven or eight. He knew Natasha’s enhanced metabolism meant that she needed to eat more than the average person and his excuse was that he was just plain starving.  The airplane food had been barely edible and it made Clint’s appetite hurt just by thinking about it (“aww, disgusting food.”). Neither him or Natasha said a word until the last pizza crust was dumped in the box: Natasha didn’t like the crusts and Clint couldn’t fathom why. He thought he had taught her well. He was ashamed of her. He tutted and shook his head out of said shame but Natasha didn’t notice.

 

She seemed to be shutting down, something that she often did after a long mission. It was because she was nothing short of exhausted and dead on her feet, ready to switch off and sleep for a few days. The archer slung his arm around her shoulders, tugging her body to his side, tucking her against his ribcage. She curled willingly around him.

 

“Missed you,” Clint murmured, pressing his chin to the top her head, his clean-shaven chin (because Natasha hated when he attempted to grow facial hair, so he always made sure to shave his pathetic attempt of a beard off before he saw her) nestling into her red hair, which had started to curl again.

 

Natasha mumbled something back, and he didn’t quite catch what she said, but he assumed it was a ‘missed you too’. His eyes glanced down, Clint noticing how she tried to bury herself into him without jostling her left shoulder. He moved his arm a little higher, releasing any pressure he had been putting onto her injury without knowing it was there – he still didn’t know if there was anything wrong with it but he had learned to read her body language a long time ago.

 

He also noticed her heavy eyes, the way her head was drooping lower and lower past his shoulder. Nudging her slightly, he shifted his body so that she would move too, Clint sitting up straighter to force her to wake up from her dozing state.

 

“C’mon Tasha, don’t go to sleep until I’ve checked you over.”

 

She just grumbled in response and sat up straighter, grimacing a little as she tweaked her shoulder, rolling it slightly to try and ease the nagging pain. Clint frowned and repositioned himself so that he was pressed right against her back, one leg on either side of her. He tugged her body so that she rested against his chest, his hands gently tugging the sweater she was wearing – his sweater – up over her head. The white bandage made his lips pout, seeing how it wound over to cover both the back and the front of her shoulder. He could tell that the injury had been taken care of by a professional rather than by herself, which made Clint’s worry dissipate a little. Natasha had an awful habit of sewing herself up in a dank and dirty bathroom in a safehouse in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a rusty needle, unsterilized thread, and a bottle of cheap vodka to hand.

 

“It was a through and through. I already told you that.”

 

Her husky voice pulled him out of his little bubble, Clint having been running his fingers tenderly over the bandage, checking there was enough gauze to prevent her stitches from ripping open during the night. There was, which made him relax even more.  He turned his attention back to Natasha once he realised she had spoken.

 

“I know, I remember.”

 

His own voice was quiet and calm, Clint trying to ease the Black Widow down from he tension he could feel still coursing through her body. Of course, after the stress and sheer emotional turbulence she had been thrust through over the last couple of weeks, he didn’t blame her for being tense.

 

His eyes shifted again, down further this time, to focus on the bruise that was well on its way to settling on her usually porcelain skin. It was a striking purple, a spider’s web of forked veins almost bursting out of her chest. His fingers moved with his eyes, running over the elaborate bruise.

 

“How d-…”

 

Natasha cut him off.

 

“Electric shock. I _told_ you that already.”

 

She made sure to stress the fact that she had indeed told him already, because she just wanted to crawl into bed and stop repeating herself. Perhaps she would end up sleeping for a week. Natasha rather fancied that. What was the term for prolonged sleeping? Hibernation. Natasha rather fancied going into hibernation and forgetting about the world for a while.

 

Clint chuckled.

 

“I know. Is there anything else I should know? Anything else that needs patching up that you may have not told me about?”

 

She shook her head and Clint half expected her to sit herself up and drag herself off of the couch and into his bedroom, where she would collapse face down on the bed and just sleep where she fell. It was something that happened after a long and tiring mission, much to Clint’s amusement. He had a whole album of photos on his phone of positions Natasha took when she passed out after a mission.

 

But Natasha didn’t move. Instead, she practically curled in on herself. Clint was momentarily unsure as to what to do, as it wasn’t very often that someone as strong as Natasha Romanoff slipped. His mind protested that she was the Black Widow, she shouldn’t be breaking down and collapsing in on herself like this, but then his mind also piped up that this woman sat in front of him wasn’t the Widow. Natasha and the Widow were two different people, and he was one of the few individuals who were privileged to know both of them and live afterwards.

 

The archer noticed that her lips were moving and he could hear a quiet murmuring leaving them. Her words were monotonous, almost a chant, and the chant was one that Clint had heard countless times before.

 

“I’m one of twenty-eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi… I’m one of twenty-eight young Black Widow agents with the Red Room… the training is hard, but the glory of Soviet culture – no.” She paused, shaking her head, frustration clear on her face as she struggled to remember what it was she was saying. “No… the glory… the glory of Soviet supremacy… and the warmth of my parents, makes up for… makes up for… the warmth… no…”

 

Clint waited for her to stop, her words trailing off at the same point they always did. She never could remember the rest of that sentence and honestly? Clint didn’t want to hear it. Whatever nonsense those Soviet scientists had planted into her head as a child could stay buried as far as he was concerned. And he figured Natasha felt the same way too.

 

Instead of sitting behind her now, Clint moved to sit in front of her, kneeling so that he was eye level – or would be eye level with her if she lifted her head up to look at him in the first place. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the carpeted floor instead and weren’t going to move anytime soon. His hands reached up and gently took hold of her arms, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles to try and bring her out of whatever dark place her mind had sent her.

 

“Tasha, stop it.”

 

Clint’s words held a firm undertone, letting her know that he wouldn’t tolerate her doing this to herself again. The chant was a way she would revert back to the guilt and memories that plagued her too often for his liking and he would attempt to pull her out of the situation before it escalated. She did stop, her lips parted as she paused, her brow still furrowed in confusion and frustration.

 

Her head lifted and she looked him right in the eyes.

 

“I don’t know who I am Clint.”

 

Her words were barely a whisper and she sounded desperately at breaking point that he wanted nothing more than to wrap her in his arms and hold her tight. But the Black Widow would squirm in protest and he was sure Natasha wasn’t in the right mind-set for any cuddling at all, so he didn’t do anything.

 

“We’ll figure it out together. But for now, it’s bedtime. So put Natalia, and Nastya, and Natalie away and we’ll think about those three some other time. Just focus on Natasha for now. Okay?”

 

Surprisingly, Natasha simply nodded and didn’t fight him. She hauled herself up off of the couch and Clint slipped his arm underneath hers to offer a little extra support. She thanked him with a rather shaky smile and together they made their way to his bedroom at the end of the small hall. Lucky looked up from where he had his head buried in one of their forgotten pizza boxes, the golden Labrador munching his way through Natasha’s discarded pizza crusts. Clint looked over his shoulder at him with a disgusted look on his face and Lucky didn’t take any notice.

 

“He takes after you.”

 

Natasha’s barely audible comment made him raise his eyebrows, a low chuckle leaving his throat.

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Yes. You’re a human trashcan. I’m amazed you didn’t beat him to my pizza crusts first.”

 

It was good to hear her teasing: it meant she wasn’t dwelling on past identities.

 

He let her drop onto the bed and just like he had predicted, Natasha simply decided to sleep where she fell. Though it wasn’t immediate like it often was, Natasha pushing herself to the top of the bed and pulling the sheets over herself. He didn’t bug her to go and clean her teeth – knowing she was a woman of routine so she would probably appreciate the reminder – and instead simply crawled in beside her.

 

His arms wrapped around her waist and he smiled as she sleepily curled around his body. It was a spoon of sorts; a slightly awkward spoon with the pillow that made its way between them and the large dog that decided to land at their feet not long after, but a spoon nonetheless.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone and all of their deepest, darkest, secrets were on the internet, but they would be okay. They always were.


End file.
